1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to optical fiber, and particularly to bend resistant optical fiber with reduced heat induced loss.
2. Technical Background
Tapered or heat-treated optical fibers are utilized in fiber pigtails, optical couplers, splicing, connectors and other optical components. Such tapering or heat-treatment can induce optical power loss. As performance requirements for the optical components become increasingly more stringent, the need to eliminate such loss becomes increasingly critical.
Tapering or heat-treatment can pose a particular challenge when the fibers to be treated are nanostructured optical fibers. Nanostructured optical fibers are a class of fibers developed to have ultra-low bend loss allowing for a wide variety of applications. These fibers include holes or voids running longitudinally along the fiber axis and heating the fiber causes the holes or voids to collapse, which can result in undesirable optical power leakage.